Health
The Outbreak Ledger
Diseases your grandparents retired, returning by popular demand.
- Measles, 2025eliminated from the US in 2000; the 2004 low was 37 cases→2,289 cases — a 33-year high — and 3 dead, two of them school-aged children in West TexasThe first US measles deaths in a decade. 97% of cases were unvaccinated or of unknown status. CDC
- Measles, 20262025's total was already the post-elimination record→2,777 cases by August 20 — a 35-year high, climbing weekly across 36 separate outbreaks94% of cases outbreak-associated; 47 jurisdictions reporting. The count updates Wednesdays; so does this line. CDC
- The elimination itselfmeasles declared eliminated from the United States, 2000→a federal verification committee convened in August 2026 to determine whether that sentence is still trueThe regional commission rules in November. Independent analyses expect the status to fall. STAT News
- Whooping coughthe all-time US low: 1,010 cases, 1976→35,435 cases in 2024 (CDC provisional; final surveillance ran higher), 10 dead; at least 13 more deaths in 2025The deaths concentrate in infants under twelve months, too young for their own shots. CDC
- Influenza, in childrenthe previous worst regular season killed 199 children→280 pediatric deaths, 2024-25 — the worst non-pandemic flu season since national counting beganOf the vaccine-eligible children who died with known status, 89% were not fully vaccinated. CDC MMWR
- The kindergarten line95.2% MMR coverage in 2019 — the herd-immunity threshold→92.4% and falling; exemptions at a record 4.2%, rising in 41 statesFourth straight year of decline. 24 states now exceed 5% exempt; about 280,000 kindergartners lack documented MMR. CDC SchoolVaxView
- Florida, the pilot program93.3% kindergarten coverage in 2020; 7 measles cases in all of 2025→88.9% coverage; 155 measles cases in the first half of 2026The state announced the end of all school vaccine mandates in September 2025. The legislature never passed it. The collapse didn't wait for the law. WLRN
Counts from the CDC and the state health departments; each count carries its as-of date, because these numbers move.
The Tonic Counter
What the management recommends instead. Their words; the evidence follows.
"Don't take Tylenol. Don't take it. Fight like hell not to take it." Pregnant women were told to "tough it out."
The evidence: The largest study on record — 2.48 million children, sibling-controlled — found no causal link to autism, and the obstetricians note untreated high fever in pregnancy is itself the risk. §
Doctors were getting "very, very good results" treating measles with "budesonide, which is a steroid… clarithromycin and also cod liver oil" — recoveries he called "almost miraculous and instantaneous." The vaccine: "a personal choice."
The evidence: Neither drug treats measles. Within weeks, a Lubbock children's hospital reported unvaccinated children hospitalized with measles who also showed vitamin A toxicity from dosing at home. §
"I'm going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs… to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall" — three or four years growing organic food. As a nominee he testified his family had "a much worse time getting off of SSRIs than people have getting off of heroin."
The evidence: No evidence supports years of farm labor as addiction treatment — medication is the standard of care that cuts overdose deaths — and severe antidepressant withdrawal runs about 1 in 35, "different universes" from heroin per Stanford's addiction faculty. §
The 2026 prescription: fewer childhood vaccines. The CDC cut the universally recommended list from 17 diseases to 11 — hepatitis B, rotavirus, flu, hepatitis A and meningococcal demoted to "shared clinical decision-making" — on the strength of a 33-page comparison to Denmark.
The evidence: No new safety data and no advisory-committee review were cited. The pediatricians' and obstetricians' societies kept the full schedule; California, New York and Illinois kept the old one. §
Prescriptions quoted verbatim from the officials who wrote them; the evidence lines link to the studies and the medical bodies, which is more than the prescriptions did.
Withdrawn from the Formulary
The research this country decided it could do without.
- ~$500MThe mRNA wind-down: 22 vaccine-development projects terminated — Bird-flu and pandemic platforms at Moderna, Pfizer and Emory among them. The department's phrase: a "coordinated wind-down." (Aug 2025)
- $766MModerna's pandemic bird-flu vaccine contract — Canceled the same week the company reported positive interim trial results. (May 2025)
- 2,291 grants, $2.45BNIH research grants terminated in 2025 — The peer-reviewed count. Hundreds were reinstated by one court and re-terminated when a higher one let the cuts resume. (2025)
- $11.4BCOVID-era grants to state and local health departments — Moved to claw back — "the COVID-19 pandemic is over." A federal judge blocked it, but only for the states that sued. (Mar 2025)
- 86% terminatedUSAID's global-health awards — 5,341 of roughly 6,200 awards. The Lancet's projection — and it is a projection — runs to millions of additional deaths by 2030. (Apr 2025)
- 15 hospitalsThe pediatric brain-tumor trial network — The consortium that has run early-phase childhood brain-cancer trials since 1999 says it "will cease to exist"; the NCI says the work moves to a broader network. Its trials closed to new enrollment either way. (2026)
Each withdrawal dated and priced from the agency’s own announcement or the reporting that counted it.
The Premium
What it costs you to be this healthy.
- +26%Your marketplace premium, 2026 — The steepest sticker increase since 2018 — the insurers priced the subsidy expiry and the tariffs right into it.
- +58%What enrollees actually pay — $113 to $178 a month after the enhanced credits expired December 31 — actual 2026 data, not a projection.
- +37%The deductible — $2,759 to $3,786 — the steepest jump on record. More per month, for a plan that starts paying later.
- 3 millionWho left — Paid marketplace enrollment fell from 22.1 to 19.2 million — the first decline since 2020, pinned by analysts on the price shock.
- 10 millionMedicaid, by 2034 — More uninsured under the July 2025 law, by the CBO's score of the enacted text. Work requirements go national January 2027; Nebraska went first.
- 146Rural maternity wards — Rural hospitals that have closed or announced closing labor-and-delivery since 2020. The law cuts $137B from rural Medicaid and replaces $50B — 37 cents on the dollar.
- 2.5×The standing arrangement — US health spending per person against the OECD average — $14,885 to $5,967 — to live 3.7 years shorter than comparable countries.
Figures from KFF, the CBO and the carriers’ own filings. Projections say so; actuals are dated.
The Exodus
The people who read the labels for a living, leaving the building.
- Mar 2025Peter Marks, the FDA's top vaccine regulator, forced outHis resignation letter said the secretary "wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."CBS News
- Apr 202520,000 people cut from HHS — a quarter of the departmentAbout 2,400 from the CDC, 3,500 from the FDA and 1,200 from the NIH, by the department's own plan.Government Executive
- Jun 2025All 17 members of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee, fired at onceReplaced within days by eight hand-picked appointees, several of them public vaccine skeptics; one withdrew during the very financial-conflicts review the firing was said to cure.CNN
- Aug 2025Susan Monarez, fired 28 days into the job — the first Senate-confirmed CDC director ever dismissedBy her account, for refusing to approve vaccine votes sight-unseen. Four senior officials resigned within a day; some were escorted from the building.Washington Post
- Dec 2025The replacement panel dropped the 30-year universal hepatitis-B birth dose8 to 3, reclassified as "individual decision-making" for newborns. The birth dose had driven infant hepatitis B down since 1991.STAT News
- Feb 2026The CDC's third leader in six monthsThe NIH director now runs both agencies at once. No permanent director has been confirmed; the surgeon general's chair has sat empty through both outbreak years.STAT News
- Sep 2025Four states formed their own vaccine-guidance alliance; ten more and New York City followed within two weeksRoughly 50 million people on the West Coast schedule alone. Fifteen governors later stood up a standing alliance advised by a former CDC director — a shadow CDC in all but name.Washington State DOH
- Jun 2026The pediatricians and the obstetricians published their own schedulesThe AAP broke from the federal schedule for the first time; ACOG resigned its advisory seat and issued a maternal schedule endorsed by 13 medical societies. A federal judge stayed the federal changes in March.ACOG
Departures dated to the announcement. The routing-around — states and medical societies issuing their own guidance — is listed at the same weight, because that is the second half of the same story.
Dispensary verified 24 August 2026. Symptoms move faster than print; the next sweep advances the label.